Booker T. Washington
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Booker Tamborello Washington (April 5, 1856 - November 14, 1915) was an African-American political leader, educator and author. He was one of the dominant figures in African-American history in the United States from 1890 to 1915.
He was born into slavery at the community of Hale's Ford in Franklin County, Virginia, and moved with his family to West Virginia at the age of 9 where he learned to read and write while working at manual labor jobs. At the age of sixteen, he went to Hampton Virginia to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, now Hampton University, established to train teachers. In 1881, he was named as the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He was granted an honorary Masters of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1896 and an honorary Doctorate degree from Dartmouth College in 1901.
Washington gained national prominence for his famous Atlanta Address of 1895, attracting the attention of politicians and the public as a popular spokesperson for African American citizens in the late 19th and early 20th century. Although labeled by some activists as an "accommodator", his work cooperating with white people and enlisting the support of wealthy philanthropists helped raise funds to establish and operate dozens of small community schools and institutions of higher education for the betterment of black persons throughout the south.
In addition to the substantial contributions in the field of education, in his time, Dr. Washington did much to improve the overall friendship and working relationship between the races in the United States. His autobiography, Up From Slavery, first published in 1901, is still widely read.
Youth, freedom and education
Booker T. Washington was born April 5, 1856 on the Burroughs farm at the community of Hale's Ford in Franklin County, Virginia. His mother Jane was a cook and his father was a white man from a nearby farm. In April of 1865, emancipation of the slaves took place in most of Virginia after the end of the American Civil War. (The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed later in 1865 freed all slaves nationwide.)
In the summer of 1865, at the age of nine, Booker and his brother John and his sister, Amanda, moved to Malden in Kanawha County, West Virginia with their mother to join his stepfather. He worked with his mother and other free blacks as a salt-packer and in a coal mine. He even signed up briefly as a hired hand on a steamboat. However, soon he became employed as a houseboy for Viola (née Knapp) Ruffner, the wife of General Lewis Ruffner, who owned the salt-furnace and coal-mine. Many other houseboys had failed to satisfy the demanding and methodical Mrs. Ruffner, but Booker's diligence and attention to detail met her standards. Encouraged to do so by Mrs. Ruffner, when he could, young Booker attended school and learned to read and to write. And soon, he sought even more education than was available in his community.
Leaving Malden at sixteen, Washington enrolled at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, in Hampton, Virginia. Poor students such as Washington could get a place there by working to pay their way. The normal school at Hampton was founded for the purpose of training black teachers and had been largely funded by church groups and individuals such as William Jackson Palmer, a Quaker, among others. In many ways he was back where he had started, earning a living through menial tasks, but his time at Hampton led him away from a life of labor. From 1878 to 1879 he attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., and returned to teach at Hampton. Soon, Hampton officials recommended him to become the first principal of a similar school being founded in Alabama.
Tuskegee
Former slave Lewis Adams and other organizers of a new normal school in Tuskegee, Alabama sought a bright and energetic leader for their new school. They at first anticipated employing a white administrator, but instead, they found the desired qualities in 25 year-old Booker T. Washington. Upon the strong recommendation of Hampton University founder Samuel C. Armstrong, Washington became the first principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which opened on July 4, 1881. The new school later developed into the Tuskegee Institute and is now Tuskegee University.
Tuskegee provided an academic education and instruction for teachers, but placed more emphasis on providing young black boys with practical skills such as carpentry and brick making. The institute illustrates Washington's aspirations for his race. His theory was, that by providing these skills, African Americans would play their part in society and this would lead to acceptance by white Americans. He believed that African Americans would eventually gain full Civil Rights by showing themselves to be responsible, reliable American citizens.
Still an important center for African-American learning in the 21st century, according to its website, Tuskegee Institute was created "to embody and enable the goals of self-reliance." These themes were fundamental to the rest of Washington's life and work over a period of more than thirty additional years. He was principal of the school until his death in 1915. At his death, Tuskegee's endowment had grown to over US$1.5 million from the initial $2,000 annual appropriation obtained by Lewis Adams and his supporters.
Family
Washington was married three times. In his autobiography Up From Slavery, he gave all three of his wives enormous credit for their work at Tuskegee and was emphatic that he would not have been successful without them.
Fannie N. Smith was from Malden, West Virginia, the same Kanawha River Valley town located eight miles upriver from Charleston where Washington had lived from age nine to sixteen (and maintained ties throughout his later life). Washington and Smith were married in the summer of 1882. They had one child, Portia M. Washington. Fannie died in May 1884.
He next wed Olivia A. Davidson in 1885. Davidson was born in Ohio, spent time teaching in Mississippi and Tennessee and received her education at Hampton Institute and the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham. Washington met Davidson at Tuskegee, where she had come to teach. She later became the assistant principal there. They had two sons, Booker T. Washington Jr. and Ernest Davidson Washington, before she died in 1889.
His third marriage took place in 1893 to Margaret James Murray. Murray was from Mississippi and was a graduate of Fisk University. They had no children together. Murray outlived Washington and died in 1925.
Politics
Active in politics, Booker T. Washington was routinely consulted by Congressmen and Presidents about the appointment of African Americans to political positions. He worked and socialized with many white politicians and notables. He argued that self-reliance was the key to improved conditions for African Americans in the United States and that they could not expect too much having only just been granted emancipation.
His 1895 Atlanta Compromise address, given at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, sparked a controversy wherein he was cast as an accommodationist among those who heeded Frederick Douglass' call to "Agitate, Agitate, Agitate" for social change. A public debate soon began between those such as Washington, who valued the so-called "industrial" education and those who, like W.E.B. DuBois, supported the idea of a "classical" education among African-Americans. Both sides sought to define the best means to improve the conditions of the post-Civil War African-American community. Washington's advice to African-Americans to "compromise" and accept segregation, incensed other activists of the time, such as DuBois, who labeled him "The Great Accommodator". It should be noted, however, that despite not condemning Jim Crow laws and the inhumanity of lynching publicly, Washington privately contributed funds for legal challenges against segregation and disfranchisement, such as his support in the case of Giles v. Harris, which went before the United States Supreme Court in 1903.
Although early in DuBois' career the two were friends and respected each other considerably, their political views diverged to the extent that after Washington's death, DuBois stated "In stern justice, we must lay on the soul of this man a heavy responsibility for the consummation of Negro disfranchisement, the decline of the Negro college and public school, and the firmer establishment of color caste in this land."
Rich friends and benefactors
Washington associated with the richest and most powerful businessmen and politicians of the era. He was seen as a spokesperson for African Americans and became a conduit for funding educational programs. His contacts included such diverse and well-known personages as Andrew Carnegie, William Howard Taft, and Julius Rosenwald, to whom he made the need for better educational facilities well-known. As a result, countless small schools were established through his efforts, in programs that continued many years after his death.
Henry H. Rogers
A representative case of an exceptional relationship was his friendship with millionaire industrialist Henry H. Rogers (1840-1909), a self-made man who had risen to become a principal of Standard Oil and headed dozens of other enterprises.
Around 1894, Rogers attended one of the famous educator's speeches at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The next day, Rogers contacted Washington, and invited him to come to 26 Broadway to meet with him. Washington later wrote that Rogers said that he had been surprised that no one had "passed the hat" after the speech the previous night. With the common ground of their relatively humble beginnings and early life, the roots of a friendship between the two famous men had been sewn.
Washington became a frequent visitor to Rogers' office, to Rogers' 85-room mansion in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and was an honored guest aboard Rogers' yacht Kanawha. Their friendship extended over a period of 15 years and Rogers quietly supported and encouraged Washington in his work.
In in June 1909, although Rogers had died suddenly a few weeks earlier, Dr. Washington went on a previously arranged speaking tour along the newly completed Virginian Railway. He rode in Rogers' personal rail car, "Dixie", making speeches at many locations over a 7-day period.
Dr. Washington told his audiences that his recently departed friend had urged him to make the trip and see what could be done to improve relations between the races and economic conditions for African Americans along the route of the new railway, which touched many previously isolated communities in the southern portions of Virginia and West Virginia, including passing close by the community where Washington had been born over 50 years earlier.
Some of the places where Dr. Washington spoke on the tour were (in order of the tour stops), Newport News, Norfolk, Suffolk, Lawrenceville, Kenbridge, Victoria, Charlotte Courthouse, Roanoke, Salem, and Christiansburg in Virginia, and Princeton, Mullens, Page and Deepwater in West Virginia. One of his trip companions reported that they had received a strong and favorable welcome from both white and African American citizens all along the tour route.
It was only after Rogers' death that Dr. Washington revealed publicly some of the extent of Rogers' contributions. These, he said, were at that very time "funding the operation of at least 65 small country schools for the education and betterment of African Americans in Virginia and other portions of the South, all unknown to the recipients." Also, known only to a few trustees at Dr. Washington's insistence, Rogers had also generously been providing support to institutions of higher education, including Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute.
Dr. Washington later wrote that Rogers had encouraged projects with at least partial matching funds, as that way, two ends were accomplished:
1. The gifts would help fund even greater work.
2. Recipients would have a stake in knowing that they were helping themselves through their own hard work and sacrifice.
Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) was another self-made wealthy man with whom Dr. Washington found common ground. Like Henry Rogers, Rosenwald was also from a modest background. The son of German-Jewish immigrants, he had been apprenticed as a clothier. After some failure, had found success working with Richard W. Sears marketing to rural Americans through mail-order. During a difficult time, he became a part-owner in the struggling business, which partly due to his leadership and ability to inspire employees and sense what the customer's wanted, soon grew to become the nation's largest retailer. After Richard Sears retired in 1908, Julius Rosenwald had become President of Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago.
Dr. Washington was introduced to Rosenwald by a mutual friend who knew that Rosenwald was concerned about the poor state of African American education in the U.S., especially in the financially weak southern states. Rather than requesting funds, Washington initially simply encouraged and challenged Rosenwald, as he had others, to address the problem, and get involved in some manner.
In 1912, as their friendship matured, Rosenwald was asked to serve on the Board of Directors of Tuskegee, a position he held for the remainder of his life. Rosenwald endowed Tuskegee so that Washington could spend less time traveling to seek funding and devote more time towards management of the school. Later in 1912, Rosenwald provided funds for a pilot program involving the construction of six small schools in rural Alabama, which were constructed and opened in 1913 and 1914 and overseen by Tuskegee. The model proved successful, and, although Washington was nearing the end of his life, Rosenwald would see that the work continued.
Julius Rosenwald and his family established the The Rosenwald Fund in 1917 for "the well-being of mankind." Unlike other endowed foundations, which were designed to fund themselves in perpetuity, the Rosenwald Fund was intended to use all of its funds for philanthropic purposes.
The school building program was one of the largest programs administered by the Rosenwald Fund. Using state-of-the-art architectural plans initially drawn by professors at Tuskegee Institute [1], over four million dollars was spent to build 4,977 schools, 217 teachers' homes, and 163 shop buildings in 883 counties in 15 states, from Maryland to Texas. The Rosenwald Fund used a system of matching grants, and black communities raised more than $4.7 million to aid the construction [2]. These schools became known as Rosenwald Schools. By 1932, the facilities could accommodate one third of all African American children in Southern schools.
The Rosenwald Fund also helped found the United Negro College Fund and it donated over 70 million dollars to public schools, colleges and universities, museums, Jewish charities and black institutions before funds were completely depleted in 1948.
Up from Slavery, invitation to the White House
In an effort to inspire the "commercial, agricultural, educational, and industrial advancement" of African Americans, Booker T. Washington founded the National Negro Business League (NNBL) in 1900.
When his autobiography, Up From Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller and was one of the major influences to Marcus Garvey in the founding of the UNIA in Jamaica. He was also the first African-American ever invited to the White House as the guest of a President - which led to a scandal for the inviting President, Theodore Roosevelt.
"Think about it: We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands...
"Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, we are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe." - from Up From Slavery
Washington finally collapsed in Tuskegee, Alabama due to a lifetime of overwork and died soon after in a hospital, on November 14, 1915. He is buried on the campus of Tuskegee University near the University Chapel.
Honors and memorials
For his contributions to American society, Dr. Washington was granted an honorary Masters of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1896 and an honorary Doctorate degree from Dartmouth College in 1901. The first coin to feature an African-American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar that was minted by the United States from 1946 to 1951. On April 7, 1940, Dr. Washington became the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp. On April 5, 1956, the house where he was born in Franklin County, Virginia was designated as the Booker T. Washington National Monument. Additionally, numerous schools across the United States are named for him.
At the center of the campus at Tuskegee University, the Booker T. Washington Monument, called "Lifting the Veil," was dedicated in 1922. The inscription at its base reads:
"He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry."
Quotes
Booker T. Washington
* "I will let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him."
o Booker T. Washington
* "There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
o Booker T. Washington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington
![[img]http://www.lainsignia.org/imag2003/gregory.gif]([img]http://www.lainsignia.org/imag2003/gregory.gif)
